Cooperstown

Cooperstown, residential and resort village (1990 pop. 2,180), seat of Otsego co., E central N.Y., on the Susquehanna River and Otsego Lake; inc. 1807. It was founded by William Cooper, who brought his family there in 1790. His son, James Fenimore Cooper, made his home in Cooperstown after 1836, and the region is described in his Leatherstocking Tales. Fenimore House is the headquarters of the New York State Historical Association. Other museums include the Fenimore Art Museum, the Farmers' Museum, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum (1939), which commemorates the (now discredited) invention (1839) of baseball here by Abner Doubleday. The Glimmerglass Opera (Glimmerglass was J. F. Cooper's name for Otsego Lake) also draws visitors.